Spending Your Life Savings On Marketing Thinking "This Better Work"

Renee Scott:
I would have to say 90% of the income came from platform, leads and/or platform generated referrals, so to speak. Some of them were personal referrals and some was recurring customers, but I was told when I started in 2018, that it takes five years to really build your real estate business and build your brand. I'm not a patient person. So to me, it took me two years to start building my brand, and I have a brand now. People know who I am and the ads have helped that.

Tim Chermak:
This is the Platform Marketing Show, where we interview the most creative and ambitious real estate agents in the country, dissect their local marketing strategy and get the behind the scenes scoop on how they're generating listing leads and warm referrals. We'll dive into the specifics of what marketing campaigns are working for them, how much they're spending on those campaigns and figure out how they have perfected what we call the platform marketing strategy. This is your host, Tim Chermak. I'm the founder and CEO of Platform, I love marketing and I talk too much, so let's dive in.

Tim Chermak:
All right, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Platform Marketing Show. I'm joined this morning with Renee Scott. Renee is a realtor in the Fort Myers, Florida region, and Renee has a pretty inspiring story. I promise you, you've probably never heard a realtor's story quite like Renee's, in terms of how she's grown her business, the obstacles and challenges that she overcame. It really is inspiring. So I'm really excited to dive into this and I hope this episode is as encouraging for everyone as it has been for me, just learning more about Renee's story. So Renee, welcome to the Platform Marketing Show.

Renee Scott:
Thanks Tim. Good morning.

Tim Chermak:
So we got connected ... I'm not even sure, I think you had inquired maybe about Platform in 2018 or 2019, something like that, and I think we kind of stayed in touch, but it wasn't quite the right time. You weren't ready to sign up, but we had maybe emailed back and forth a couple of times. I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what happened is you kept seeing examples or case studies of other agents who were really, really successful and eventually you're just like, "Screw it. I've got to just give this a go." I mean, is that accurate? Because I remember one time we had a phone call where you called me and this was probably in February or March of 2020.

Tim Chermak:
I think you signed up in March, 2020 is when you started the Platform strategy and you basically said, "All right, let's just do this." I mean, what led up to that? What was going on in your life or your business that led you to just kind of take the plunge, even though you didn't really know how you would get the money to fund everything?

Renee Scott:
Well, I'm a relative newbie to real estate. I got my license in September of 2018 and went out of the gate running. I mean four closings before December 31st, and I said, "This is great. I love real estate," but I was a full-time musician, so real estate was always intended to be a side hustle. Then, I started seeing all these ads for Platform on Facebook and other ones too, but the other ones just didn't kind of grab me, as much as yours did. So I remember talking to Mitch and I couldn't wrap my head around the money at that time. 2019, I focused more on music and just kind of let real estate ... I was doing things but not doing things, and my commission for 2019, it was pitiful. It was like, I don't know, $20,000. It was ridiculous.

Tim Chermak:
Okay, and just to clarify for everyone listening, when you say that, I was kind of like a part-time agent, but I was a full-time musician, does that mean like you're playing piano or guitar in a recording studio or what do you mean when you say that you're a full-time musician?

Renee Scott:
Yup. Singer in a band. Yup.

Tim Chermak:
Okay, so you're the lead singer in a band that plays shows all across Southwest Florida. What does a typical show look like? How many shows do you play a year?

Renee Scott:
It varies. It can be any ... sometimes it's five days a week, sometimes it's one day a week. It just depends. You know how the clubs are down here. It depends on when the gigs are. I mean, it's always been a full-time living and it still is. Believe it or not, I'm a full-time realtor and still full-time musician, both, I kind of balanced the two now. I found a way to make that work, but when I talked to Mitch, I couldn't commit in 2019, I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Then unfortunately, the Fort Myers area went to another agent, who I happened to know. Then, 2020 came along and COVID hit and my band gigs went gone. They were gone, everything closed

Tim Chermak:
Right, to zero.

Renee Scott:
To zero. Yes.

Tim Chermak:
That was your regular income. So for many people listening who maybe can't wrap their minds around a full-time musician, because most people just don't know a person who does music full-time, that was your main job, and you were making as much in that job as like a lot of people make in their normal salaried careers, because you're playing so many shows a year that it is full-time. So that's what was paying all of your bills and everything. Then, when-

Renee Scott:
Absolutely. Absolutely, I have 48,000 in income gone, the day COVID hit and they closed out, every show that I lost for the rest of the season totaled $48,000, gone, like that, gone.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, just to zero.

Renee Scott:
Mm-hmm.

Tim Chermak:
Then, that was around the ... I think that was the same month that you had signed up for Platform, because I seem to remember you signed up and literally within ... I think it was like literally within two weeks, COVID was all over the news and it was just coming over, where we had seen stuff on the news about this outbreak in China type deal.

Renee Scott:
Mm-hmm.

Tim Chermak:
Then, it was in those two weeks that we realized like, "Oh, it's coming to the US. It's spreading. This is crazy." I think this was like the first or second week of March, because I remember you signed up and-

Renee Scott:
It was like March 19th.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, I actually live in Naples. So, I was about a 45-minute drive away from where you were. So when you signed up, I was like, "Hey, no problem. I'll drive over and we can spend a morning filming some videos, just so you can start your Platform experience with a couple listing videos and I'll teach you in-person how to film a proper business highlight, market update video." So I drove up there and that was the day that the world was ... it was the last, somewhat normal day where people were still kind of edgy and they were trying to stay away from other people if you saw them.

Tim Chermak:
We weren't yet masked up. There weren't any lockdowns yet, but we went to a place that you, I think, knew the owners in Fort Myers-

Renee Scott:
The gathering place. Yeah, a restaurant. They were still open, so that's where we were.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, they were still open. I remember I got like a Cuban sandwich there because you were saying how good their Cubans were and you filmed a market update video there, and by the way, that video is great. I actually still use that as an example sometimes of like, this is how to film a proper business highlight video, as a retargeting video. That video was great, but that was the last time I remember going out to eat and getting food at a restaurant for like months, because after that Cuban sandwich I had with you, when you signed up, everything was shut down for two months after that. That was the last day I remember.

Tim Chermak:
So this is all happening in your very first month with Platform. You signed up and you're optimistic and you're like, "Okay, I'm going to make this investment in this marketing program and I'm going to take my career to the next level in 2020," and then literally, within just a couple weeks, the whole world just blows up and everyone is going crazy over COVID. What is going through your mind at that time?

Renee Scott:
Well, it was a dice roll because not only did I lose out my band gigs, but my husband is an executive chef in a country club, they're closed down. He gets furloughed, so now my husband is out of work. He's out of work. I'm out of work-

Tim Chermak:
So basically in a two week period, your family lost their entire income.

Renee Scott:
Yeah. Yeah, well, and that's why we had to take a chance on savings and say, "We're going to have to dip into the savings and do this," because there was no way, I was not going to put the mortgage in forbearance. I wasn't going down that path. I said, "We're going to make money." It's not like music was my only career. I have a secondary option here and I either get it ... as they say, "Poop or get off the pot." I was getting off the pot. So was doing the, off the sidelines and into the game. So, I called Mitch, I remember calling Mitch back before I even got with you and just said, "I know it's probably not open, but is Fort Myers open?" He goes, it is, that other agent, it didn't work out for her."

Renee Scott:
I know her and I actually ran into her and she was telling me, "I was watching your videos and you'll crush this." She goes, "I was terrible at videos." That's what she said to me, "I was terrible at videos," and Sam is a great girl, but I got to say, I'm thankful she gave up the spot because it went to me. And I was still a little bit skeptical that it was going to work, but within my first ... I think Tim, was it my first two weeks, I had the lead hit. They went under contract. My very first Platform sale came-

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Yeah, because you-

Renee Scott:
Yeah, April like-

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, you had a very, very quick return on investment because most agents when they sign up and they start this platform marketing strategy, we're trying to like align expectations with the high hanging fruit philosophy, where the goal is that we're generating a lot of leads, we're going to create a lot of retargeting campaigns. You're going to stay top of mind with all these people. So that hopefully, in five to six months, you start to see some closings and then usually the real results start to more pop up in the six to 12 month range. At that point, I think most agents will hit a sort of like escape velocity and hit a cruising altitude, where it's usually six to 12 months.

Tim Chermak:
You're one of those agents who got lucky that you got a lead who came in, who was basically ready to go, and within, I think a month, you had someone under contract. So that was kind of quick evidence for you that, "Oh, okay, cool. There is something to this," but still all-

Renee Scott:
Still close friends. We do a lot of things with them. It's like, that's the other thing about the real estate business. You meet people and they become your friends, but even more than that, the strangers that have seen the ads, people that know me or know my husband have seen the ads. So, it has brought our inner circle of friends and family to like, "Oh, I didn't know your wife did real estate. I've had several sales because of that." So I still contribute that to platform because even though it's a lead that didn't come into my dashboard or something, it's still something that reached out.

Renee Scott:
It targeted family and friends, so they're coming to me and they're referring somebody to me. It's been great, I'm telling you.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, and yet, all this is happening, you had an early win, where you got someone under contract, I think literally in your first month. Still, this is all happening in spring and in the summer of 2020, when most of the world is still pretty much locked down, so you are like starting your platform experience in what was probably the worst year ever to be a realtor in recent memory, unless we're going all the way back to 2007 or 2008. To be fair, even in 2007 and 2008, the whole world wasn't locked down. The real estate market obviously, took a dump, but it wasn't like, it was like illegal to go show a house or-

Renee Scott:
Well, not here.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. I mean, I think-

Renee Scott:
We're in Florida, Tim.

Tim Chermak:
In March, April of 2020, and then into the summer, I guess, if you could survive that as a realtor, there is nothing that will ever happen in the macro economy. That'll be worse than that, because most people were afraid, even if it was legal to go show houses, because obviously, Florida is a more free state than many other states in the US. Many people were still scared to. So even if it was, you were still allowed to go on showings, most people didn't want to. They're like, "Oh, we're just going to wait two or three months or we're going to wait and see what happens here. We don't want to make any major moves during COVID."

Tim Chermak:
So your business yet still grew in 2020, because as you said, in 2019, your GCI was a lot closer to like $20,000. Yeah, it was very, very much-

Renee Scott:
Yeah, it was ridiculous. That was a paper route, basically, I had in 2019.

Tim Chermak:
It was very much a part-time, "Hey, my real job is I'm a full-time musician and I'll sell a couple houses on the side," and then, Platform in 2020 helped grow your business, and I think it's interesting what you said and you described what I call fuzzy ROI in a really practical manner, in that like, "Hey, a bunch of my husband's friends and our friends' friends started contacting us, saying, hey, I've been seeing Renee on Instagram or I've been seeing Renee on Facebook. I didn't even know she was a realtor." That's what we call fuzzy ROI, because it's not even necessarily a lead who came in from a lead generation campaign.

Tim Chermak:
It's all these people that are in the outer rims of your sphere, they're not super ... it's not your best friend, because I'm assuming your best friends knew that you were licensed as a real estate agent.

Renee Scott:
Yeah, I sold my best friend a house in 2020, so that worked out great. The interesting thing was my husband got contacted by a classmate from high school, who said, "Hey, I don't know if you remember me," and of course, he did because my husband remembers everybody, but she said, "Well, I saw your wife's real estate video on Facebook, and we're looking for a golf access house in Cape Coral." So the next thing you know, they're in a house. So it was a beautiful thing, and he reconnected with an old high school classmate in the process. So, 2020 was very interesting, Tim because I think I joined at the perfect moment, because people got locked down, and so what they did is they turned to social media.

Renee Scott:
So I had a captive audience for the most part is when I got started, and down here in Florida, when my real estate career was ... I was out of the house from March, April, May. I had showings, I had things happening. We have obviously protocols in real estate during COVID, that we had to mask up and hand sanitizer and take the proper precautions, but people were wanting to get out. They were wanting to do something. They didn't care who was going to look at the house, but they did it. So it was perfect timing, and I don't think I could have done it without Platform. I wouldn't have had the tools, but it was great. I'm very grateful to the timing on it all. It was the best dice roll, ever, I rolled.

Tim Chermak:
I think the impact that it made for you, I mean, obviously, you picked up a bunch of leads who didn't know you and I know that you've sold houses to some of those leads, who had no idea who you were, that came through lead generation campaigns and that's great. A huge part of the return on investment for you has come in the form of that fuzzy ROI, where it's like people on the outer rims of the sphere that knew you, but they're not necessarily your best friend or whatever and yet, they didn't necessarily know that you were a practicing, licensed real estate agent.

Tim Chermak:
Now, they start seeing your retargeting videos, and it's not just one video, it's multiple videos and multiple different posts and you keep popping up on their Instagram or Facebook, and they realized like, "Oh wow, she must be a really successful realtor here, because I keep seeing her pop up. It looks like she's really busy." In reality, what's happening is we are kind of creating that reality by running so many ad campaigns, because the truth was in 2019 and going into 2020, you weren't yet a successful realtor.

Renee Scott:
No. No.

Tim Chermak:
You weren't like selling a bunch of homes.

Renee Scott:
My ads on Facebook were, "Open house this Saturday, Oh, under contract or hey, look at this beauty," and they were just ridiculous. It's like everybody else is cookie cutter ads and I've gotten to the point now, I want my ads to be anything but real estate, if I'm going to do them. I'll give you an idea of how busy I am. I actually had to have Andrew. I said, "Can you please just stop my leads for a minute? I can't get caught up," because 30 leads a day are coming in, 40 leads a day. I'm like, I can't answer them all and I'm one person. So I was starting to get overwhelmed.

Renee Scott:
It's the old joke, although things are falling on, you're getting buried, and I was getting buried in leads, which is a great problem to have, it really is. So those ads, believe me, they're hitting people and it generates conversations on Facebook and like any of them, some are good, some are bad. I'm not Bill Catlett, I don't engage with them. Bill is great at that, but I just turn around, I go delete, I delete. I'm not a confrontational person in that respect, but it's funny. The people are ... for the most part, they're fun. They PM me, they follow me.

Tim Chermak:
Yup. Yup.

Renee Scott:
They are my new friends, and actually, I'll tell you another interesting thing, when I joined Platform in 2020, one of the first leads I got in April of that year, just closed on a house last week, so here we are.

Tim Chermak:
Okay, and we are recording this, just so everyone knows in late January, 2022. It's almost February, 2022. So, that would be an example of high hanging fruit.

Renee Scott:
They just closed last week and I was in constant contact with them. I just remember to shoot emails out to people I know that are looking and I feel bad because some of those folks now, the price point they were in is nonexistent anymore. So they're having to switch gears, but I'm still in touch with them and seeing how I can help them out, but it's crazy. The leads are still coming in and I don't know, I'm from upstate New York originally, so I can tell you a lot of my leads are New York, New Jersey and Minnesota. Those folks are escaping. We had to call them our refugees, down here.

Tim Chermak:
Right, right, right. They're moving to Florida. Yup. I mean, that's me. I was born and raised in Minnesota and moved to Florida, I think it's now been seven years and it was just, "Hey, the taxes are way too high in Minnesota and there's not any sunshine in the winter." So that's why we moved to Florida, but that really speaks to your brand that you're building, because if those people are now contacting you and they start following you on Facebook, it's not like you're just generating leads of locals in Florida. It's like everyone in your greater sphere now knows that you're a successful realtor.

Tim Chermak:
We kind of have created that reality, where before, it was perception is reality. So let's make it look like you're a super thriving realtor, so people want to work with you and then, it happened and you have become a thriving realtor and now everyone wants to work with you. Now, that's a real problem that you're dealing with, is time management because you don't necessarily have all the time to follow up with all these leads, but that's a much better problem than what you had a couple years ago when the problem was, "Oh crap, I only made $20,000 this year as an agent."

Renee Scott:
You bet. I'll take that problem any day of the week. For any one of my Platform peers out there, in any other section of the country, if you are tired of where you live and you want to come down to the warmth, we can always start a team here. I could use the assistance.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. There you go.

Renee Scott:
Come to the sun.

Tim Chermak:
So you kept growing and I'm not sure what your GCI was in 2020, because that was obviously, the very first year you were at Platform. I'm assuming it was more than 20,000, which it was in 2019.

Renee Scott:
Yeah. Well, I had no closings until April. So in January, February, March, not one closing. My closing in April was one that was on the books already, but then all of a sudden, from May on, that's when the platform closings all started and other ones from that. I think Tim, I'm terrible at this because people will ask me, I'm like, "Well, I don't know what I made. I don't pay much attention. I just give all my stuff to my accountant. He does it." I think my GCI in 2020 was about maybe 70, maybe.

Tim Chermak:
Cool.

Renee Scott:
You got to consider from May until the end of the year, because truly, I didn't do anything the first quarter at all.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. It was almost just half the year, and that actually then would've replaced both your musician income and the previous year's real estate income just in that $70,000. So that doesn't sound like ... it doesn't sound like a lot maybe to some of the people listening to this podcast, but for you that 70K in the middle of the COVID lockdown, being that your husband was furloughed from his executive chef job, all of your musician gigs completely dried up because of COVID, that $70,000 was probably pretty meaningful.

Renee Scott:
It was, and for a lot of people, which might sound weird, but down here in Florida fortunately, the governor opened us back up. So the music gigs were starting to come back in over the summer, sporadically, but it still gave me that income that was coming in and then, my husband's job came back in September. We had to survive a summer. So, real estate and small gigs here and there and savings got us through, but we don't have to worry about that. Again, we could have another COVID lockdown, we won't, thank God here. If it happened again, I am pretty confident that everything I have on the books is going to sustain us and it was-

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. I mean, and in the last year, because if we jump ahead in your story, the happy ending is that in 2021, you made 125,000 in GCI.

Renee Scott:
I did.

Tim Chermak:
So that obviously allowed you to massively build up your savings and investments because that's substantially more money than you had ever made in a year in real estate. Before, I mean, keep in mind, just two years prior, you made $20,000. Now, all of a sudden, you made $125,000. That must have felt pretty good.

Renee Scott:
It did and I would have to say 90% of the income came from Platform leads and/or Platform generated referrals, so to speak. Some of them were personal referrals and some was recurring customers. I was told when I started in 2018 that it takes five years to really build your real estate business and build your brand. I'm not a patient person, so to me, it took me two years to start building my brand, and I have a brand now. People know who I am, and the ads have helped that, and not in an arrogant way at all. I just think the ads just put you, "Oh, you did that thing. I love your one on the boat." They always go, "I love your one on the boat." People say stuff to me and that's how I got on-

Tim Chermak:
So what ad or video is that? Can you explain for people when you say like, "Hey, I had an ad on a boat," what was that?

Renee Scott:
Yeah. One of our fellow Platform agents, Erin and Sarah had given me a listing lead here. They're in the East Coast of Florida, in the Palm beach area, and they gave me a listing lead here in Cape Coral. So I went in and I listed it, and that morning within two hours after it going live on the MLS, I get a call from a couple from Minnesota. They said, "We'll give you a full price cash." So when I talked to the seller, she says, "You know, I don't have anybody walking through my house with an open house. I'm fine with that, take it." So we literally went under contract and everything is signed in less than eight hours.

Tim Chermak:
Wow.

Renee Scott:
So I didn't get a chance to do a listing video there because we really hadn't ... weren't ready for it yet, so I didn't do it. So I said, "You know, I'm going to do a little post listing video." So what I did is I got a friend of mine who has a boat and we literally did a boat ride from the river to the house to show people how long it took to get from that house to the river. We got off the boat. Then, I said, "Let's go inside," and then, I walked around the front of our house and I said, "I'd love to show you the inside, but I can't because we closed this ... this went under contract in less than eight hours."

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, because it's already sold.

Renee Scott:
I can help you too.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah.

Renee Scott:
It was a great video and Andrew did a great job with that and it was perfect.

Tim Chermak:
That basically ran as retargeting ads, so all the people on your retargeting list from the previous lead generation ads started seeing this video of you, racing down the river in a boat, which I think is great because it doesn't look like an ad. It's not the typical thing that would pop up on your Facebook newsfeed or Instagram where realtors, with their fancy portrait photography or head shots or whatever, it just doesn't look like a typical realtor ad. So when that started popping up, people just kind of watch it, because like, "Oh, interesting. She's on a boat. Where is she going? What's this all about?"

Tim Chermak:
It makes it memorable. So what are some other examples, Renee, of just some of your favorite ads that you've run, whether they were videos or even if they were just photo ads?

Renee Scott:
My favorite photo ad without a doubt is the one with me and my husband out front with my dogs, about fence yards because I love my animals. I have four dogs and a cat. So anytime I can ... I want to get them in my ads as much as possible because I adore them.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. So I will explain for the listeners what you're kind of referencing, because I actually know exactly what ad you're talking about, but the average person listening to this probably has absolutely no idea what you're referencing. So we have an ad that we run at Platform, if this makes sense in your market obviously, that is basically a free report of homes that have fenced in backyards. Obviously, for legal compliance reasons, we can't say it's like for families because that's a protected class or whatever. We can say, "Hey, this is a free report of homes that have big fenced in yards."

Tim Chermak:
Then, we added a little line in there that says, "This is great for anyone who has dogs, who wants a big yard for your dogs to run around them." Rather than just using a generic stock photo of a house that has a fenced backyard, we had the idea of like, "Hey, what if Renee actually poses for this picture with her husband and also all your dogs?" So you have what, a German shepherd, you have-

Renee Scott:
A lab, an Aussie border mix and a boxer bulldog mix.

Tim Chermak:
And a cat.

Renee Scott:
And our cat, O'Malley, yeah. He didn't come outside for that one. He didn't like ... he was like, "I don't need to do this."

Tim Chermak:
Sounds like a cat. So you had four dogs in this picture and they're all pretty big dogs. I mean, these aren't like poodles or ... yeah, they're not poodles or chihuahuas.

Renee Scott:
No, my lightest dog is 70 pounds. Yeah.

Tim Chermak:
Your lightest dog is 70 pounds.

Renee Scott:
Yes.

Tim Chermak:
That's that's awesome. So you're posing for this picture. All your dogs are in the photo and obviously, there's tons of comments on this ad because when we launched the ad, it's this photo, which proves that you're a dog person, you love dogs. Then, it just says, "Hey, having a home with a fenced or a big backyard is really important to me. So I figured there's probably other people who also want that, so I created a free list of homes for sale here in the Fort Myers area that have a big fenced yard." We ran that as a lead generation ad and obviously, not only is it generating a bunch of leads, but it's also kind of pulling double duty, in the sense that this ad is also branding you because you are in the ad with your dog.

Tim Chermak:
So, even if someone just sees it and they don't request more information, if they don't register as a lead, it's still building your brand in the area because people remember, "Oh wow, that's actually her, with her dogs and tons of people would-"

Renee Scott:
The comments were great. One guy says, "I'm not even in the market to buy or sell a house but when I am, I'm coming to you because I love my dogs too," so it's great. They'll remember that ad. It's just a memorable ad and not because I'm in it. I'm invisible in that ad. Those four dogs are the stars of that ad right there, so it's pretty cool.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Again, that's just another example of this broader theme of the best ads are the ads that don't look like ads.

Renee Scott:
Exactly.

Tim Chermak:
Because when that pops up, it wasn't a professional portrait photography where you went out and hired a super high-end photographer to take a perfectly crisp picture with perfect lighting and every ... it like, no, you literally just went out and took the picture with a cell phone. So, it doesn't look like an ad when it pops up in your newsfeed and that's precisely why that has performed so well. So as you look back on some of the other videos or ads that you've done, what are some other examples, Renee, of ads that just went really well because people actually mentioned it to you in real life?

Renee Scott:
The one where, there's a local restaurant in town, really popular and our server there that we love, he and I post together holding a dollar bill, just talking about, when you spend your money locally ... I think you did this ad for me, when you spend your money locally, here's what your dollar gets you. That was great.

Tim Chermak:
Yup. Yup.

Renee Scott:
Because people at that restaurant are seeing this because I tagged the restaurant in there, sorry about that, late night gig last night. All his friends are seeing it. They're sharing it. They're going, "Oh, look at Donnie." You made a Facebook ad, so it's great. Sorry, Tim.

Tim Chermak:
That's just an example of featuring local businesses, local restaurants in your advertising campaigns, and we just wrote a quick essay about like, "Hey, realize that when you support a locally owned restaurant, here's all the way that that money recirculates in the local economy," because they're ordering their food often from local farms, they're getting local produce when they can and they're paying their servers and that money stays in the local economy and they're going to shop locally because they probably own or rent in the area, versus obviously if you go to a big nationally owned corporate chain, a lot of that money flows immediately out of state to wherever that national chains headquarters are.

Tim Chermak:
So we wrote a quick ad about that, but what's important when you're taking a stand on an issue like that is that you don't want to come off as cranky or you're too much of just an annoying idealist. I think that you do a really good job with that, Renee, where that ad, it wasn't like we're shaming people who go to McDonald's or something or shaming people who do want to grab a national chain every now and then. It was just in a very friendly kind of casual way. It's like, "Hey, when you can, support local small businesses." Then, you had the actual business owner in the ad. So they're in the photo, so all of their friends, like you said, saw them pop up and they're like, "Oh wow. I didn't know that you're even on Facebook or on social media," when in reality it's obviously, your ad. So one-

Renee Scott:
Yeah, that was a great one and my other favorite, I got to say, because I don't want it to skip my mind is the Memorial Day ad with the Saving Private Ryan. I love that ad, still love that ad, that still generates so much. I mean, people just love that ad. They do.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. For those who are listening, who have no idea what she's talking about, that's an ad that Renee has done where we basically reedited a short clip from the movie, Saving Private Ryan and we just talk about the real meaning of Memorial Day, which is that it's actual soldiers who have died. It's not a generic holiday about soldiers or the armed forces in general. It's specifically to honor those who actually gave their lives. So, when you go out to your Memorial Day picnics or in Florida, a lot of people head to the beach on Memorial Day. Just remember, it's not a generic Memorial ... or it's not a generic patriotic holiday like the 4th of July is, like Independence Day. This is specifically to honor people who gave their lives.

Tim Chermak:
So, obviously that ad gets a lot of engagement because we're putting some real thought and some substance into what we're saying. We're not just posting a picture of an American flag and saying, "Happy Memorial Day," which is what most people do. So the broader theme here that I can kind of draw out from a marketing strategy perspective is that, you can't really build a brand and activate those outer rims of your sphere and start getting all those referrals and get that fuzzy ROI. You can't really do that with just one random, really good ad, because you-

Renee Scott:
No. Those ads have to also apply to you. It's easy, someone can, "You can give me an ad and go here and you go do this ad." You got to find a way too to apply it, to make it personal to you-

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Exactly, make it relevant to you and personalize for you, but it's not just like one randomly really, really good ad. Even if you have an ad that just goes viral and is amazing. If you only have one, you're not really going to build a brand doing that. I mean, I just asked you, "Hey, what are some of your favorite ads?" In the last five minutes, I mean, you rattled off four examples of ads that you've done just immediately off the top of your head that your audience really engaged with and that you enjoyed, and there's probably another four or five that you could name as well. So there's actually a lot of these ads going at the same time. It's not just like one ad did super well and that built your entire brand. It's the cumulative effect of a bunch of these different retargeting campaigns, working simultaneously.

Tim Chermak:
So when people click on one of your lead generation ads, they keep seeing all these other various retargeting posts and it keeps you top of mind, because it's not like they're just seeing the same ad over and over and over again.

Renee Scott:
No, and again, to refer back to your Memorial Day ad that you did, where I grew up in upstate New York, my hometown, Seneca Falls is birthplace of women's rights. Two miles away was Waterloo, birthplace of Memorial Day. So I was able to show that sign in Waterloo of Memorial Day, so who do you think is seeing that? Everybody, I went to high school with, all my parents, their friends, they're seeing this, they love it, a little shout out to that. Cape Coral is also a purple heart city, so we have that whole Veteran's Memorial that is along the Veteran's Bridge, which is where I filmed some things from there. So, it's interesting, so if you take the ad, which could have, just one thing and just say, "Hey, it's about Memorial Day," but the other thing is it's about my town where I live in and it's about the town where I came from.

Renee Scott:
That was just a perfect storm of an ad for me, because it went home and it came here, so it's trifecta, so to speak.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Yeah. Just to change gears a little bit, Renee. I wanted to ask you, with all the videos that you've filmed at local small businesses and local restaurants, especially being, you know a lot of those restaurant owners because you're constantly playing shows at these restaurants on weekends with your band and obviously, your husband is an executive chef in the area, so people know him as well. Are the small business owners appreciative, are the restaurant owners appreciative when you highlight them in the videos? How many of them have actually contacted you saying either, "Thank you for doing that promo of us," or even asked you like, "Hey, could you do us next month? Could you highlight us next month?"

Renee Scott:
Well, I'm going to take a step back from that. Had they asked me? No. Do they remember it? Yes, when I go back in, because I try to hit everybody. There's a lot that I want to do and again, I'm just overwhelmed. So my videos may be like far and few between, which shame on me, I need to get back to doing more because ... but I'm so busy, so I don't know, good problem, bad problem.

Tim Chermak:
By the way, that is really funny that you say that because almost every person that I interview on the Platform Marketing Show says a variation of that, where they're like, "Oh man, I could be doing so much of a better job. I know I could be filming more videos and creating more content," and yet, you're saying this and it's like, "Well, your GCI has grown literally over $100,000 in the last year." So clearly what you're doing is working and yet you still acknowledge, "Oh man, I could be doing so much of a better job with this."

Renee Scott:
It's all goals. So, once that goal was set last year, so where's my next goal have to go? Well, of course, it has to go bigger and more. I got to do more. So the only way to do that is to have more targeting, more retargeting ads. Again, I got to get it off the pot, Tim. I got to do some more. So that's definitely a challenge to be working two full-time jobs because I'm still a full-time musician, still full-time real estate agent. I'm juggling. When I get off this call, I got real estate to do and-

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, so we are actually recording this, so people know we're recording this. This is a podcast episode on a Saturday morning because I had initially ... I think I had emailed Renee a couple weeks ago saying, "Hey, do you have any availability on Thursday or Friday afternoons?" You're like, "No, unfortunately, I have to play a show on Friday night, so there's no way I can do anything that afternoon." So, we're doing this on a Saturday morning and she was like, "Oh I, obviously, performed last night, so my voice is feeling a little bit sensitive this morning, so I hope I can make it through because I sang last night," and I was like, "All right, we'll figure it out, so you very much are still a full-time musician, and yet, you're also crushing it as a real estate agent.

Tim Chermak:
You are definitely no longer a part-time agent, because I think anyone who is making 125 in GCI, you can pretty safely say they're a full-time successful agent.

Renee Scott:
I love this. I love the job. It's been a great career, but an unrealized one, until I ... again, I had to say, it was very daunting to say I'm going to do this, and I was biting my nails, but looking back, it's like, "Wow, best decision ever." It really was. I would never have gotten to this point if I didn't take that plunge. Never.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. I mean, and again, just to like highlight the emotional and financial challenge that that probably was, March of 2020, you had just signed up, literally a week or two before that. Then, all of a sudden COVID hits you lose all of your scheduled shows that were coming up. I mean, each of those shows pays your band. What is a typical average? Are you making a couple thousand dollars a show or-

Renee Scott:
Yeah. It all varies. Actually, I'm going to step back because I had already ... COVID hit, I had lost my gigs when I signed up for Platform. I was already looking at zero income from bands when I took this plunge. It wasn't, like I said, I signed up and lost the gigs.

Tim Chermak:
Sure. Sure.

Renee Scott:
I lost the gigs and signed up, which even more daunting, if anybody is out there going, "Oh no, what am I ... I can't do that. I don't know about the money." I had no money, it was savings. I was going into savings and I'm going to do it. Again, it was a big decision, but fortunately, the right decision. Becky down in Naples, who's another agent in the next county over, I had lengthy conversation with Becky about it, because I knew she was ... obviously, we all work together down here. We know a lot of the different agents. I had a lengthy conversation with her. I was scared to death to do it. She's the one who taught me back from the lesson and said, "Do it, do it."

Tim Chermak:
It is a huge investment. I mean, most agents who stick with Platform, they're marketing every year, it's probably going to cost them, when all is said and done, probably about $25,000. Sometimes even more depending on how much you're obviously investing in the ads budget. So, let's say that it's just $25,000. Well, that's more than you made in the entire year prior selling real estate because your GCI was only $20,000. So you were committing more to a marketing program than the entirety of what you made in the last year from real estate. So that's obviously, a massively bold bet and yet, you still went forward with it and you stuck with it. You didn't quit and now, a couple of years later, you can actually look back and say this decision added over $100,000 to our family's income.

Renee Scott:
I've paid for my marketing for it, I don't know, I've sat down pen to paper, I've paid for my marketing for what, five years? My whole thing was, if I can just get enough leads and I break even with this without costing me money, I was going to be happy. I did more than break even. I paid for it and sustained, and not only that, with the closings that I've had, it's paid for Platform for last year and this year and next year, and I think probably into 2024 too. So how do you complain about that? I never would've had that, so I can't look at it and go, "Look at all the money I spent. I wouldn't have had that money." So, the investment is in me now. That's why I have to look at it. I finally invested something in me. So it's been worthwhile, I'm glad I did it.

Tim Chermak:
I fully expect your business, Renee to grow even more here in 2022 because as the world starts to get back to normal ... because obviously, we were much more open and free in Florida than pretty much any other state, but still there's some people, even in Florida, who were just nervous, even if buying a house or going on showings or listing their house or all this is perfectly legal, they're still nervous to do it, and a lot of people are kind of waiting on the sidelines, just because of all the general uncertainty in society right now. So, 2022 seems like it's going to be the big year of transition where things start getting back to normal. A lot of businesses are rehiring, and the economy is growing and things are opening up. Hopefully, just in this general sense of people feeling anxious or uncertain, that starts to fade away in 2022.

Tim Chermak:
So, I think your business will grow even more, if even in 2021, you still added $100,000 to your GCI, I would expect that in 2022 and beyond, that's going to grow even further.

Renee Scott:
Yeah. I have no doubt and we're thriving down here and that's why it's always shocking to me when somebody comes from ... some classmates were down here on vacation from New York and it's just ... it's still, I can't wrap my head around the whole thing, because we've been so open and we're thriving, we're short-staffed on places down here. People want to get out and do things. The calls are coming, but it's just crazy, because I still ... I have to remember, not every state is Florida. I'm very fortunate to be a real estate agent here. I know that some of my peers in other states have it a lot worse than we got. We got it great here.

Tim Chermak:
There's obviously people from around the country that are wanting to move to a place like Fort Myers.

Renee Scott:
Mm-hmm.

Tim Chermak:
Awesome. Well, is there anything else ... I can hear one of your four dogs barking in the background, Renee. Which one is that?

Renee Scott:
That's Jojo. That's my lab.

Tim Chermak:
Jojo is the lab. Okay.

Renee Scott:
Yeah, my lab. He Barks just randomly when the other dogs are playing, he'll just bark like he's encouraging the game. Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Chermak:
That's awesome.

Renee Scott:
God bless him.

Tim Chermak:
Is there anything else you wanted to add? Often, the last question I ask on these podcast interviews is if there's an agent listening to this right now, who is like where you were at in March of 2020, where their business just isn't where they want it to be and where they think it should be, but they're scared to pull the trigger on Platform or they recently signed up for the Platform strategy and they're just getting started, and obviously, it's a big investment and they're scared about that because they're like, "Oh my God, what did I just get myself into?" What would you say to that person? If they're listening to this episode, what would you say to just encourage them?

Renee Scott:
For me, once I got started, I would say take the negative out of the equation. Don't say, "Oh my gosh, what did I do? I can't do this." Take that away. Have faith in yourself. You were smart enough to make the call and sign up or you're actually watching it. So take all the negatives out of the equation and just say, you're qualified enough to do this and you have enough faith in yourself. This is for you, so you're in charge, you're at the reign. So, you just need to do it and have faith in yourself, but if you keep saying can't, then can't will be the star of the show. Just don't let can't be the number one thing in your mind. Just say, "I'm going to do this. It's going to be great." Be positive about it.

Tim Chermak:
Cool, cool. I think that's an awesome spot to end, and I just feel really encouraged even, listening to your story again and hearing you put it in your own words of, "Hey, I literally made $20,000 in real estate GCI the year before Platform." Now, this last year, you went from 20,000 to $125,000. I mean, it's a cliche. It's an overused term, very stereotypical, but going from 20,000 to 125,000 is like life-changing money.

Renee Scott:
It is life-changing. It is, and it's been great. I feel like I'm part of a big family here with Platform. That's the other thing too, from the other agents sending that listing, that Erin and Sarah sent me and a referral I had for Jeremy and Amy Lucas. I just love my fellow Platform agents because we kind all have each other's back, because we're all on the same ride. I like it.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Agents are obviously sending referrals back and forth all the time. You mentioned Jeremy, Jeremy is up in Sarasota area. Amy Lucas is over on the space coast, kind of like Melbourne, Florida. The roses are over near Palm Beach and people send referrals back and forth all the time. So it's another hidden benefit, I guess you could say, of the PlatFam, the Platform Family is that not only are you generating leads, buyers and listings from your actual advertising campaigns, but often, you can get warm referrals from other agents who know that they have a client or they know someone, moving to Fort Myers. So it's like, "Oh cool. Well I'll obviously connect them with Renee." Because even ... who was the gentleman who moved down from Minnesota that had an affiliation with Allison and Main Street Marketing and-

Renee Scott:
Lloyd and Sarah. Lloyd and Sarah.

Tim Chermak:
Lloyd and Sarah. Yup, and you got connected with them through those platform connections and they obviously moved down and bought a really nice house in Cape Coral,

Renee Scott:
Love them. They're great people. They're great people.

Tim Chermak:
Obviously, as you become friends with a lot of these clients and it moves from just being a transaction with someone buying a house with you to like actually being their friend, right?

Renee Scott:
Absolutely.

Tim Chermak:
They're going to refer people to you as well, the way that friends refer people. So I think you've done an excellent job with that Renee of actually getting to know your clients and truly becoming friends versus just viewing them as a statistic in your business. Like I said, your business is going to continue to grow. So that's all we have for this episode. Thank you everyone for listening and Renee, I know you're super busy. You're going to have to head out and do a full day of realtoring.

Renee Scott:
Is that a word?

Tim Chermak:
So thank you for your ... I just made it a word it's a verb now.

Renee Scott:
I like it.

Tim Chermak:
So I'll probably get sued by the NAR. So thank you for your time this morning, Renee and I think this episode will be really encouraging to everyone who listens to it. Thanks guys, until next time.